From: djones@insight.mcmaster.ca (David Jones)
Newsgroups: can.general,can.infohighway,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk,comp.org.eff.talk,rec.arts.tv,rec.video.cable-tv
Subject: V-chip: Keith Spicer's deceptive weasel words
Date: 20 Mar 1996 23:01:54 -0500
Organization: McMaster University, Computational Vision Laboratory
Lines: 153
Message-ID: <4iqkbi$1n0@insight.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
In his most recent article, columnist Parker Donham delivered
a stinging criticism of Keith Spicer's V-chip plans.
Quoting George Orwell, he says Keith Spicer's "spin" on the V-chip
has "words used in a consciously dishonest way ... with intent to deceive."
Ouch.
Here's the article, ...
- - - - -
gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca/00/org/efc/media/daily-news.17mar96
- - - - -
Copyright (c) 1996 by Parker Barss Donham. All Rights Reserved.
Reprinted with permission.
The Halifax Daily News
Sunday, March 17, 1996
The V-Chip
Keith Spicer's weasel words
are intentionally deceptive
by Parker Barss Donham
Students of language and its misuse should listen carefully
to the verbal flourishes that accompanied, and obscured,
CRTC chairman Keith Spicer's decision to impose the V-chip
on Canadians.
The chip is an electronic device that detects codes imbedded in
television programs, and blacks out shows whose ratings for
violence, nudity, sexual content, or off-color language exceed
levels established by the set's operator.
Note that consumers will control only the level of ratings at which
their sets will black out programs, not the nature of the ratings,
or their application to particular programs. That will be rest with
industry committees, mostly in the United States, operating under
the watchful eyes of various governments and self-appointed
sex-and-violence watchdogs.
By September, thanks to Spicer and his fellow commissioners, all
Canadian cable subscribers will pay $1 per month extra for the
privilege of having a V-chip, whether they want one or not.
By next year, all TV new sets will include the device, its cost
built into the price of the set.
A CRTC "fact sheet" explained that several "roadblocks historically
impeded progress" on TV violence, including a "focus ... on research
and finding the `definitive' study" that "led, inevitably, to a
never-ending sterile debate." The "fact sheet" complained of a
tendency to define the issue of television violence "in philosophical,
ideological, and legal terms focusing exclusively on free speech."
Readers will rarely find a better example of what George Orwell had
in mind when he complained, in his wonderful essay "Politics and the
English Language", of "words used in a consciously dishonest way ...
with intent to deceive."
What these weasel words attempt to paper over is the inconvenient
fact that, despite the best efforts of anti-violence groups inside
and outside academia, the crusade to censor violence enjoys no solid
foundation in objective research. But since Chairman Spicer and his
allies know in their hearts that TV violence must harm children,
why bother letting a lot of "sterile debate" get in the way?
Likewise, the concerns of those who believe the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms means what it says when it guarantees "freedom of
thought, belief, opinion, and expression, including freedom of the
press and other media of communications" can be dismissed as merely
"philosophical, ideological and legal."
Spicer makes much of the claim that the V-chip is voluntary and
under the control of parents. It is neither.
Parents will be able to set a numeric rating level for violence,
sex, and dirty words (although, they may need help from the same
10-year-old boy they rely on to program the VCR). They will have
no control over the meaning of the ratings. How will Schindler's List,
a gripping portrayal of the holocaust that killed six million Jews,
be rated for violence? How will the Boys of St. Vincent, a hair-raising
account of a Roman Catholic order's sexual abuse of boys, be rated
for sex? At what age should children watch such shows? Should
violence on the Simpsons qualify for the humorous exemption proposed
by Spicer? How about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers?
Each of these decisions calls for a judgement based on a complex set
of values. Far from being empowered, as Spicer like to claim, the parent
who employs a V-chip will be abdicating those judgments to an industry
committee, one that owes its very existence to the threat of
government-imposed rules.
As the American Civil Liberties Union pointed out, "A media rating
system mandated by government under threat of the formation of a
federal rating agency should private industry fail is not a
`voluntary' system. It is a form of censorship."
Even within Canada, huge differences exist as to values a V-chip
would regulate. Quebecers, for example, are more tolerant of sexual
themes in their media. Spicer would subject us to a monolithic ratings
system. Ironically for this Canadian nationalist, control over the
values thus imposed will effectively reside in the United States,
where most of the programming seen in Canada originates.
Spicer claims to have the overwhelming backing of Canadians for his
government crackdown on violent and sexual television content. The
selective nature of his consultations _ he sought out meetings with
groups opposed to violence _ and his disdain for Canadians with a
"philosophical, ideological, and legal" commitment to free speech
reinforced that impression.
David Jones, president of Electronic Frontier Canada, a group that
defends freedom of expression in electronic media, says that if Spicer
really wanted to follow the public's wishes, he'd back a "C-chip"
-- one that would "filter out distracting and unwanted commercials".
Such a device wouldn't need selective consultations to win an appearance
of popularity. (See EFC's website at http://www.efc.ca.)
Jones, a professor at McMaster when he isn't defending freedom from
the encroachment of bureaucrats, plans to put his electrical engineering
students to work inverting the V-chip, a technically trivial task,
he predicts. With an inverted V-chip, frat brothers can ensure that
their parties will feature only the raunchiest programs. Ah, freedom.
Years ago, under pressure from dairy farmers, various governments
barred margarine manufacturers from coloring their products.
I'm old enough to remember that early ritual of civil disobedience:
tossing the plastic margarine pouch back and forth across the kitchen with
my sisters, to mix in the yellow die that came, unmixed, in the package.
Spicer's V-chip is the information-age equivalent of uncolored margarine,
and just as silly. Within a few years, a decade at most, the V-chip
will self-destruct in the face of merging communications technologies.
As the Homolka fiasco demonstrated, the Internet is quickly outstripping
the capacity of government busybodies to impose their will on citizens.
(ITALIC)Copyright (c) 1996 by Parker Barss Donham. All
rights reserved. Parker Barss Donham welcomes comments on his columns.
You can write him at R. R. 1, Box 188, Bras d'Or, N.S. B0C 1B0, or via
electronic mail at pdonham@fox.nstn.ca.
To send a message to the entire list, send to parker-L@nstn.ca.To send a
message to Parker only, send to pdonham@fox.nstn.ca.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Parker Barss Donham | R. R. 1, Bras d'Or, | (902) 674-2953 (vox)
pdonham@fox.nstn.ca | Nova Scotia B0C-1B0 | (902) 674-2994 (fax)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -